Early Challenges to Weimar

• In its early years, the Weimar Republic struggled to cope with the pressures of the Treaty of Versailles.
• The Spartacists were a Communist group supported by the Soviet Union, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, who staged a revolt (rebellion) in Berlin in January 1919 with the aim to lead a general strike and overthrow the Weimar Republic.
• Ebert used a right-wing (conservative) group of former soldiers, called the Freikorps, to stop the Spartacist uprising.
• Wolfgang Kapp was the leader of the Freikorps in the March 1920 rebellion in Berlin, aiming to seize control and stop the Weimar democratic system.
• The second challenge from the right was the Munich Putsch, staged by the Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party (NSDAP), also known as the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler and Ludendorff.
• In November 1923, the Nazis entered a meeting of the Bavarian government, demanding the government’s support.
• The Nazis took control of the local police and army headquarters during the Munich Putsch, but Ludendorff secretly let the government leaders go.
• Hitler used his trial for publicity to spread the Nazi message, wrote his bestseller 'Mein Kampf' in prison, and reorganised the Nazi party to gain success.
• The origin of the Nazi Party was the German Workers' Party which was formed in 1919, renamed to the National Socialist (Nazi) Party in 1920, and expanded rapidly, having 35,000 members in 1923.
• The 'Twenty-Five Point Programme' promoted anti-semitism, emphasised the superiority of Germans, and called for the abolition of the Treaty of Versailles.
• Despite gaining national recognition, the Nazi party received only 2.6% of the vote in the 1928 elections.
• The party with the most votes in the 1928 elections was the Social Democratic Party (SDP), with 29.8%.